Chapter 39 Chapter 38: The Death of Yan Hongyan

The "Central Cultural Revolution" was powerful for a while, and the team leader Chen Boda "governed it leniently". He not only supported the Hubei rebels to seize the king's responsibility, but also intervened in the "Cultural Revolution" in Yunnan Province. Yan Hongyan was the secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the first secretary of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, the first political commissar of the Kunming Military Region, and the top leader in Yunnan. He was awarded the rank of general in 1955.

Chen Boda was responsible for Yan Hongyan's tragic death during the "Cultural Revolution" County people, born in 1909.He joined the Communist Party of China at the age of 16. According to Chen Boda, Yan Hongyan met him in 1933 when he was working in the Zhangjiakou Chahar Anti-Japanese League. In July 1934, Yan Hongyan was sent by the Shanghai Central Bureau of the Communist Party of China to Moscow to attend the Seventh Congress of the Communist International and to study military affairs in the Soviet Union. He returned to China the following year and served as the commander of the Yellow River Guerrilla Division of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and the commander of the 30th Army.

During the War of Resistance Against Japan, he served as the commander of the third garrison regiment of the Eighth Route Army Left Behind Corps. During the War of Liberation, he served as the deputy commander of the Third Corps of the Second Field Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. After liberation, he served as Secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, Vice Governor of Sichuan Province and First Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.Yan Hongyan attracted Mao Zedong's attention because of two things:

One thing is about Gao Gang. Yan Hongyan had worked with Gao Gang as early as the early 1930s.At that time, during the battle in Linzhi Town, northern Shaanxi, Gao Gang escaped.As the commander-in-chief of the guerrillas, Yan Hongyan once gave Gao Gang the punishment of staying in the party for probation.In this way, Gao Gang took revenge on Yan Hongyan. In 1942, Gao Gang took the opportunity to punish Yan Hongyan when he was summarizing the experience and lessons of Northwest history in Yan'an.From then on, Yan Hongyan was made unable to hold his head up. In 1945, at the Seventh National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Yan Hongyan reported Gao Gang's problems to Liu Shaoqi, and Liu Shaoqi recorded Yan Hongyan's opinions in the record.

In this way, when Gao Gang was criticized at the Fourth Plenum of the Seventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in February 1954, Liu Shaoqi mentioned that Yan Hongyan had reported Gao Gang’s problems to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China nine years ago, and recalled from the archives that Yan Hongyan The transcript of the conversation shows that Yan Hongyan's opinion is completely correct.Yan Hongyan turned around politically. In March 1958, Mao Zedong met Yan Hongyan at the Chengdu Conference and praised Yan Hongyan's spirit of fighting against Gao Gang.

In the winter of 1958, Yan Hongyan was ordered to be transferred to Yunnan and became the top leader there. After Yan Hongyan went to work in Yunnan, he was once again praised by Mao Zedong. On May 16, 1961, Mao Zedong made a comment in Yan Hongyan's "Investigation Report on the Dissolution of Public Canteens in Midu County, Yunnan": "Comrade Yan Hongyan wrote this letter well. His investigative method is also good, combining general and individual. It is sent to all central bureaus, provincial, municipal, and district party committees for reference." Instructed by Mao Zedong, Yan Hongyan's investigation report was published and distributed throughout the country.

The "Cultural Revolution" was a storm, but Yan Hongyan was criticized by Mao Zedong. That was in August 1966, when the Eleventh Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing.The meeting discussed the "Decision on the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" drafted by Chen Boda (also known as the "Sixteen Articles"). Yan Hongyan expressed "do not understand" the "Cultural Revolution".Yan Hongyan talked about his "incomprehension" to Liao Zhigao, Secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and Liao Zhigao also deeply felt the same.Therefore, they both talked about their "incomprehension" of the "Cultural Revolution" at the group meeting.

The news quickly reached Mao Zedong's ears. When Mao Zedong met Li Jingquan, secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he asked, "I heard that the ideas of Yan Hongyan and Liao Zhigao are still not clear?" Li Jingquan quickly covered it up and said, "They figured it out, they figured it out!" The news quickly spread to Yunnan, and Yan Hongyan immediately became the number one target of the rebels' "bombardment". Immediately afterwards, in October 1967, Yan Hongyan went to Beijing to attend the working conference of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.The spearhead of the meeting was pointed at Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping.Jiang Qing and Chen Boda summoned some senior military cadres to expose Deng Xiaoping, but Yan Hongyan stood up to speak for Deng Xiaoping.

Therefore, Kang Sheng named Yan Hongyan as a "counter-revolutionary revisionist" at the work meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which made Yan Hongyan's situation extremely difficult. ※ ※ ※ Chen Boda's harsh words broke Yan Hongyan's heart. "The ones who kill me are Chen Boda and Jiang Qing!" Yan Hongyan said these words bitterly. Yan Hongyan's death was originally going to be published in the internal publication "Briefing on Important Events" for the Politburo Standing Committee members at that time, but Chen Boda deleted the news, saying that there was no need to publish it, and it was not considered an "important event"!

Back in Yunnan, Yan Hongyan was under heavy "bombardment" by the rebels. On January 4, 1967, Huang Zhaoqi, the leader of the rebel faction in Yunnan Province, was about to hold a meeting to criticize the bourgeois reactionary line of the Provincial Party Committee at the Kunming Inspection Platform Square, and ordered Yan Hongyan to attend the meeting to accept criticism. In order to protect Yan Hongyan, Qin Jiwei, commander of the Kunming Military Region, secretly sent Yan Hongyan and his wife Wang Tengbo to Maimaiyu, an important military location in the suburbs of Kunming, at 5:00 p.m. that day.

Maimaiyu is about 20 miles away from Kunming, where the mountains are steep and it is a secret military center.The Yunnan rebels could not find Yan Hongyan, and hurriedly appealed to the "Central Cultural Revolution". At 1 a.m. on January 8, the General Office of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China rang a Beijing long-distance call.The person who answered the phone was Wang Dian, deputy secretary-general of the Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China. When he heard the call, ah, the background is not small: Chen Boda, the leader of the "Central Cultural Revolution" team, wanted to find Yan Hongyan! Of course Wang Dian knew of Yan Hongyan's secret whereabouts, so he called Maiyu. Cao Xianzhen, Yan Hongyan's secretary, heard that Chen Boda had made a long-distance call, so he didn't dare to neglect, so he woke up Yan Hongyan and asked him if he would answer the call? "Take the phone here!" Yan Hongyan rolled over and got out of bed, and picked up the phone earphone. After a while, the incomprehensible Hokkien dialect rang through the earphone.Yan Hongyan really didn't understand.Wang Dongxing was at Chen Boda's place, and Wang Dongxing acted as "interpreter" temporarily. Chen Boda's words were very harsh: "Don't you hide in a hole like a mouse and go meet the revolutionary masses! Is your life so valuable? If you die, I will pay for your life! I can write a letter for you, don't be timid, don't pamper yourself , I am used to being a master, and I can’t see the wind and rain. I’m afraid of fighting once or twice? Not afraid of ten or eight times! This is the opinion of the Central Committee!” When Yan Hongyan heard it, his lungs exploded, and he shouted excitedly: "I don't admit that you are speaking on behalf of the Central Committee! Who is happy about the 'Cultural Revolution'? You sit in Beijing and only know how to issue orders. Do you understand the situation below? What do you think of Yunnan's economic construction? What do you think? What exactly are you thinking? How can you lead the local leadership if you make it like this? If you continue to do this, you will cause trouble!" Chen Boda scolded Yan Hongyan for being "stubborn", saying: "The Central Committee's decision on the 'Cultural Revolution' was written clearly. Are you still afraid of trouble? We must rely on the masses to liberate themselves and rely on Mao Zedong Thought to lead us. You are so afraid of the masses, do you want Chairman Mao to come out to save your life..." After Chen Boda finished speaking, he hung up the phone. Chen Boda's harsh words broke Yan Hongyan's heart. Yan Hongyan couldn't fall back asleep, so he went to the next room and told Yunnan Governor Zhou Xing about the phone call from Chen Boda just now. "I want to go to the city to meet those rebels!" Yan Hongyan said to Zhou Xing angrily. "Let's talk about it at dawn." Zhou Xing comforted him. "The ones who kill me are Chen Boda and Jiang Qing!" Yan Hongyan said these words bitterly.At that time, Zhou Xing did not understand the special meaning in his words. At around 4 o'clock in the morning, there was the roar of cars in Maimaiyu.A large number of rebels learned that Yan Hongyan was in Maimai Valley, so they came from Kunming to arrest him. Secretary Cao Xianzhen hurriedly ran to report to Yan Hongyan.Yan Hongyan was probably too tired, the secretary called him loudly, but there was no answer. The secretary turned on the light and was shocked: Yan Hongyan committed suicide! Before dying, Yan Hongyan wrote a note: "I was forced to death by Chen Boda and Jiang Qing." It was later found out that Yan Hongyan died of swallowing dozens of "Mianertong". Yan Hongyan's death was originally going to be published in the internal publication "Briefing on Important Events" for the Politburo Standing Committee members at that time, but Chen Boda deleted the news, saying that there was no need to publish it, and it was not considered an "important event"! Yan Hongyan's son Yan Zequn is an alumnus of the author's Peking University. In April 1991, he wrote to the author from Beijing, saying: "Later, in March 1967, during the counterattack against the 'February Countercurrent', Chen Boda talked about the death of Yan Hongyan at two important meetings (unfortunately these materials were not "Counter-revolutionary" for ten years and was copied away), I remember that the general idea of ​​his speech was: Some people were not hit by the enemy's guns, but they could not resist the enemy's sugar-coated shells, saying that Yan Hongyan was afraid of the masses. In addition, it was a confession He didn't have much contact with Yan Hongyan in the past, etc." It was not until the long night passed that Yan Hongyan's injustice was cleared. On January 24, 1978, Yan Hongyan's ashes were placed in the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing. Deng Xiaoping and Hu Yaobang attended the ceremony for the interment of Yan Hongyan's ashes...